Disclaimer: Ranking popularity is a way to measure quantity over quality. And when it comes to writing about atheism, there’s a great argument to be made that quality of postings is far more important than how popular your blog is. I would hope the higher ranking blogs combine the best of both worlds. But there are several excellent writers who don’t get nearly as much attention as they should.

I think I included just about all the major atheist blogs in my calculations… if you post frequently and have been around for a while, I think I got you. (I hope I did, at least.)

At the risk of seeming arrogant, I threw my own blog into the mix as well.

The material is up to date as of February 8th, 2009.

Explanation of all the abbreviations — and the methodology — is below the chart.

If I made any mistakes, please let me know. Obviously, the criteria I used is subjective and there are many other ways to measure a blog’s popularity, but these seemed to be decent ways to go about it.

The list will surely need updating with different methods. The one I think throws the data off the most is the Google PageRank, where a difference of one number moved a website to a completely different spot on the list.

AR = Alexa Rankings (lower number is more popular) Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users and data collected from other, diverse sources over a rolling 3 month period. A site’s ranking is based on a combined measure of reach and pageviews. Reach is determined by the number of unique Alexa users who visit a site on a given day. Pageviews are the total number of Alexa user URL requests for a site. However, multiple requests for the same URL on the same day by the same user are counted as a single pageview. The site with the highest combination of users and pageviews is ranked #1.

GP = Google PageRank (higher number is more popular) PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Wow, so Pharyngula still rates at the top, even if you don’t specifically grade on cephalopod pR0n content.

Reginald Selkirk

Which begs the question: why don’t you rank by cephalopod pR0n content?

http://unreasonablefaith.com Daniel Florien

Very nice! My list was completely subjective, so it’s nice to see a more objective approach.

Another measurement to throw in the mix might be Quantcast’s ranking. It’s a little more accurate than Alexa, though it depends on the site.

By the way, if you have 3,016 GRS, then why does Feedburner only say you have ~850 subscribers? It should be more than 3,000 plus all the other readers. If Google Feedreader is using your direct WordPress feed instead of the Feedburner, you should look into redirecting it so you can see that data in Feedburner. The Feedburner Feedsmith plugin should do that automatically if you’re not using it.

Thanks for compiling the list!

http://lifebeforedeath.blogsome.com Felicia Gilljam

Am I a bad atheist for not even having heard of some of these? :S

«bønez_brigade»

Excellent. Once again, my two favorite atheism-related blogs take the gold & silver.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/ John W. Loftus

Isn’t this fun? Good job! Nice to know we at DC are still in the mix. I hadn’t known before. Thanks.

I don’t understand why this Cynical-C guy is so popular. Not only have I never heard of him but his site doesn’t seem to have anything to do with atheist save for the occasional ingersol quote. The rest is just a bunch of youtube vids and funny pictures. It’s like a teenager’s live journal page for crying out loud.

Dustin

As a Google Reader user, I feel pretty influential in determining what’s popular. I’m not too surprised the numbers are so low since atheism is still largely a niche interest, but I think more and more people will start using Google’s reader; it’s so handy.

http://www.primordial-blog.blogspot.com/ Brian Larnder

Hemant, would it be possible to see the rankings of all 60 blogs? I was #28 (Primordial Blog) on Daniel’s list but I’d like to see how I ranked on yours.

http://www.primordial-blog.blogspot.com/ Brian Larnder

I’m also surprised that there only 60 blogs to choose from. I would have guessed that there were a much higher number.

EB

Is it a coincidence that the ranking for each item increase by approx. 1? i.e. there are 30 items, and the ranking score goes from 1.4 to 28.6.

http://www.churchrelevance.com Kent Shaffer

Very cool!

http://atheistmedia.blogspot.com David

‘Atheist Media Blog’ and ‘Atheist Revolution’ are under-ranked by these results because Google Reader is not reflecting the correct number of subscribers.

Thanks for making the list!

mikespeir

This is going to be a recurring theme here for a while, isn’t it? 😉

http://friendlyatheist.com Hemant Mehta

Hemant, would it be possible to see the rankings of all 60 blogs? I was #28 (Primordial Blog) on Daniel’s list but I’d like to see how I ranked on yours.

It would have to be the next time around, since I stopped compiling the info after I knew the top 30. But if I update this, I’ll include your info!

Is it a coincidence that the ranking for each item increase by approx. 1? i.e. there are 30 items, and the ranking score goes from 1.4 to 28.6.

Not coincidence. They were ranked relative to one another. So in a perfect world, the #9 blog would have been ranked 9 in every category. It didn’t work out that way, of course, but it was pretty close to it all around.

http://religiouscomics.net Jeff

I don’t like computer rankings. Insteaed of a lame computer Blog Championship Series (BCS) I vote for a real play-off system!!!

http://ozatheist.wordpress.com/ OzAtheist

I’m flattered and somewhat amazed I made it into the top 30.

I guess now the pressure is on to improve my blog even more.

http://www.youngausskeptics.com Skelliot

AwwawwawawawwwwWwWww, No youngausskeptics up there… oh wellz

http://www.youngausskeptics.com Skelliot

Also grats to OzAtheist, AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!!

http://www.anatheist.net James

Neat idea. It must have been at least somewhat difficult deciding on just 60 blogs considering how many are part of the atheist blogroll alone.

http://blog.calumnist.com/ Danny

What if I do not subscribe directly from the blog’s feed but from a feed farm like Planet Atheism? Won’t that under-count actual subscribers?

Miko

Danny: Without knowing for sure, I’d say probably. However, it’s likely that the number of people doing things like that is about the same for all of the blogs, so it probably wouldn’t skew the overall rankings.

http://atheistblogger.com Adrian Hayter

Yay! #26 😀

Now to send an angry email to Google and ask why my rank has dropped

http://frodology.blogspot.com/ FrodoSaves

I can see it now:

The fall of atheism occasioned by bitter infighting as to who has the best blog.

Ha!

PS – Hemant, what do you consider posting on ‘a regular basis’?

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com Cuttlefish

I am very skeptical of these rankings, for the simple reason that I made the list. 😀

I, too, would love to see the full 60 blog list, and am curious about how they were chosen. The atheist blogroll has over 800 names, last I checked, and not all on this ranking are on that blogroll (including me).

Don’t get me wrong–I love being on this list, and will probably devote more time than is healthy toward attempting to climb up it… but to see me there, and not (for instance) podblack, is very surprising to me.

Richard Wade

Regardless of which blog is ranked number one by these methods, ALL of the important people are over here.

Everyone who is reading my words right now is of course over here and so part of that group.

http://friendlyatheist.com Hemant Mehta

PS – Hemant, what do you consider posting on ‘a regular basis’?

More than once a week, I suppose.

The list is totally subjective in terms of which criteria I used.

I picked the “original” 60 blogs because they were the ones I see people talking about on a regular basis. There are 800 on Mojoey’s blogroll but many of them aren’t as active as the others… and I didn’t have time to compile a stronger, fuller list.

http://frodology.blogspot.com/ FrodoSaves

More than once a week, I suppose.

Ok thanks.

I try to post three or four times a week to maintain some sort of ‘profile’ online so it’s good to know what kind of thing is expected.

Frodo be with ya’ll.

Brian Macker

PZ Myers is riding a few coat tails. Some of the most popular blogs are written by professors. They have comparatively more free time than the rest of us. Tenure also makes them immune to fears of losing their jobs for expressing their opinions, or just plain being controversial in Myers case.

This feeds into factor two, offensiveness. Myers is out to offend and that draws crowds from both sides of any issue. Myers is the Ann Coulter of the atheist crowd, often spouting offensive ideas just to get a rise.

For example look at Myers response to this statement:

“I am going to assume that everyone commenting on these threads is opposed to, and would support a legal ban on, the creation of a human-chimpanzee hybrid. A viable creature (the kind that David Barash has mused about), not an experimental culture or embryo.” – Colugo

“Bad assumption. I would love to see the experiment done, but have two reservations.

It has to be done right. I expect that the fetus would not come to term, which is boring, unless there is a thorough analysis to determine the developmental difficulties that led to the abortion.

In case it does come to term, it has to be recognized as an individual with all rights, and it must have a family committed to raising it as a full member. No institutionalizing it and in essence discarding it.

Those are hard criteria to meet. We don’t currently have the technology to monitor a mammalian pregnancy with the kind of detail it would need, and it would take a lot of courage and commitment from the prospective parents.” – Myers

This ignoring several prior comments pointing out how cruel it would be to his Dr. Moreau creature.

“From a reasonable person test it is clear that existing as a human chimp hybrid could potentially be a terribly cruel fate. We do not have to be certain that an outcome will always endanger someone in order to outlaw it. The risk need only be credible.” – Brian Macker

Obviously he’s out to be controversial. He believes that there is some kind of nobility in this. So when he advocates the theft of consecrated eucharists he’ll find some rationalization for why it’s good.

He also is very thin skinned while expecting others to be thick skinned. For example, in a recent article he implied that an Italian politician wanted to keep a coma patient alive because he wanted to impregnate her brain dead body.

To see how he would handle such a charge even if put mildly I wrote the following:

“Not sure why Myers is upset over this.

My thoughts on this is that perhaps she’s a good candidate for some of those human/ape fertilization experiments that he’s on about.

Surely if he doesn’t find horror in the idea of a potentially intelligent individual not being quite man and not being quite ape, and having to deal with that, merely to satisfy some morbid curiosity, then he can’t have issues with a woman laying around in a vegetative state as a potential baby factory.”-Brian Macker

He didn’t like this turnabout and I was banned in a short time. He invented some nonsense to justify the ban, but I suspect he didn’t want me to stick around because: 1) I don’t stoop to his name calling. 2) I would have eventually found the quote that showed he had in fact advocated this Dr. Moreau experiment.

Here’s his response:

“Mr Macker: You have precisely 24 hours to provide evidence for your claim that I have intentionally deleted articles from this site. If you can’t do so, you will be banned.

I do not delete anything from what I’ve posted. It’s all there. I consider such a charge to be a serious accusation of dishonesty.

I have said in the past that I think a chimp-human hybridization experiment would be extremely informative scientifically, and that I’d like to see something done along those lines…in a petri dish. I also think it would be an ethically insurmountable problem to do the experiment to generate a human/chimp hybrid child, because it would produce a conscious being with an indeterminate social state and an absence of parental responsibility.

I endorse human-animal hybrid experiments in stem cell research. Those are not exercises in Island of Dr Moreau fantasies — they are controlled experiments to test the development of cells in known tissue environments. If you think otherwise, you’re a bigger moron than I thought.

Get to it. Don’t bother posting until you’ve shown that I’m guilty of your accusation, or you’re willing to apologize and retract. I’ll be deleting anything else you post until that time.

“I have to prove a negative and your state of mind? Go ahead and ban me if you think that’s a reasonable condition. I doubt that you do actually believe that, I think you are just angry. You really shouldn’t be so hypersensitive after you’ve implied that someone wishes to personally impregnate a brain dead woman.

What I claimed was that the post was deleted. I didn’t make any claims that you did so dishonestly. That’s your projection and deduction. A rather poor one.

What I did write was “I think he deleted the entire article that was posted on in the interest of his daughter. I can no longer find it.” Your daughter has deleted her article. Is she seriously dishonest? That wouldn’t be my assumption. I think it perfectly reasonable for her to have done so, and the same for you. The fact that she deleted hers was another reason I thought you had done the same.

Perhaps instead of getting all upset you can just find your article. Oh, hell, I’ll spend the next hour or to doing so for you. Now I’ve found it and it was damn hard to do. So I will meet your condition on this and retract that particular claimed assumption. It wasn’t deleted.…[I then point out the comment was about Dr. Moreau type full term hybrid] …

I’ll apologize for thinking the article was deleted, perhaps out of your protective instincts of a parent. I won’t apologize for claiming that you did so out of dishonesty. That wasn’t my claim. I also will not apologize for thinking that you were advocating bringing a human-chimp hybrid to term just so long as it was cared for.

… [I’ve removed a section where I point out the hypocrisy of getting upset about deleted articles while deleting my responses] …

“Asshole.” – Prof. Myers

Nice. You plan on apologizing for that? I’m not holding my breath.

You have my permission to print all our correspondence. Assuming you do so in whole. I will be assuming the same for any you send to me.

Regards, Brian Macker “

His response:

“

Nice. You plan on apologizing for that?

No. You’ve simply confirmed my opinion.

Since you’ve admitted you were wrong, but haven’t apologized, you haven’t met the terms of my requirement. Bye bye. Don’t bother coming back. And don’t bother with further rationalizations, you won’t be hearing from me, either.”

I leave it up to you to draw conclusions about his character. Is it true that he never advocated Dr. Moreau type experiments? Is it true that I claimed he was being dishonest in removing the article? Is it true that I didn’t apologize for my mistake? Who’s rationalizing?

http://www.podblack.com Podblack Blog

“Don’t get me wrong–I love being on this list, and will probably devote more time than is healthy toward attempting to climb up it… but to see me there, and not (for instance) Podblack, is very surprising to me.”

Ha! 😀 Digital Cuttlefish, you are the sweetest fish I know. I have to get your lovely book signed, BTW, they arrived in the post yesterday!

But honestly, in reflection, when I was selected to be published in the 2008 Open Lab Best of Science Blogging with you, it really struck home that the majority of my posts are really focused more on Science and not really much about faith in the strictest sense. So, I wouldn’t consider myself really eligible.

Although my research into superstitious belief brings a hell of a lot of traffic to my site (that and my help to the Translucent Science group, who have challenged Dore and more recently we aided Dr Ben Goldacre with transcribing the horrendous Jeni Barnett episode on MMR) – it’s just not the same as dedicated and committed blogging on religious claims?

I’m not like yourself with regular investigations and interrogations of what religion does and other sites are more likely to pick up on my key interests as previously mentioned. I’d rather link to sites like my fellow Australian OzAtheist and yourself first and foremost, if you don’t mind my helping what you consider is ‘more time than is healthy’. 😉 I would say that your poetic output is more healthier for the soul than internet rants by fundamentalists of all sorts anyway!

Nice to meet you Hemant – and well chosen with the likes of Cuttlefish on your list. If you ever want to check out a black cat’s thoughts on Friday 13th, you know where to go. 😉

http://merkdorp.blogspot.com J. J. Ramsey

I leave it up to you to draw conclusions about his character. Is it true that he never advocated Dr. Moreau type experiments?

Myers speculated about the ethical way to handle the unlikely case of an experiment on human-animal hybridization that went beyond the petri dish and somehow led to a viable individual, and came to the conclusion that it would be very tough and practically unfeasible to do something like that ethically.

Seriously, given the unlikelihood of such experiments ever really going beyond the petri dish, saying that Myers advocates Dr. Moreau-type experimentation is rather like saying that the researchers on the Large Hadron Collider project advocate destroying the universe.

I think your analogy is wrong. The purpose of the LHC is not to create a viable growing black hole. If it were then it too would be a dangerous and offensive experiment.

“… saying that Myers advocates Dr. Moreau-type experimentation ”

Not what I said. Myers doesn’t now advocate such experiments. He now repudiates them. That wasn’t the point. I said “never advocated”. Just one instance of advocating falsifies that claim.

The point was that at that time, in that one thread, he had advocated an experiment specifically designed to produce a viable human-chimpanzee hybrid. That was the whole point of the mental exercise. The experiment had a built in goal of creating a victim.

He obviously did advocate a Dr. Moreau experiment, even if he thought it likely to fail.

You argue that if something is likely to fail that it becomes ethical? So if someone now advocates assassinating the president with a claw hammer it becomes acceptable because he’s not likely to get past the secret service? If someone said, “I’d love to slam a hammer into the back of Bush’s skull, but I don’t think I can get past the SS”, then that’s just fine?

The one fellow, Colugo, was clear in identifying this as a Dr. Moreau experiment when he said: “I am going to assume that everyone commenting on these threads is opposed to, and would support a legal ban on, the creation of a human-chimpanzee hybrid. A viable creature (the kind that David Barash has mused about), not an experimental culture or embryo.“

Myers responded: “Bad assumption.I would love to see the experiment done, but have two reservations.” Myers claims here not to be opposed to it, and says he would love to see it done.

Whether or not such an experiment would be successful doesn’t effect the truth or falsity of the statement, “Is it true that he never advocated Dr. Moreau type experiments?”

Nor do his reservations, which only involved a) Technical feasibility and b) Finding a caring home for his victim.

The definition of “advocate” is to argue for something. He clearly did that. The something he advocated for was clearly a Dr. Moreau type experiment. It doesn’t matter if it’s likely to be successful or not.

Nor was he merely speculating on whether it was ethical. That was what I and several others were doing.

It’s clear that the exact experiment we were discussing would have horrible results if successful and Myers said he would love to do it. He confirmed the fact that he thought the results would be horrible by stating “No institutionalizing it and in essence discarding it.”

To show you why I don’t think your rationalizations work let me switch it to an equally repulsive experiment.

“I am going to assume that everyone commenting on these threads is opposed to, and would support a legal ban on, the creation of a race specific virus that renders blacks sterile morons. A contagious virus tested on an individual (the kind that David Price has mused about), not tested on an experimental culture or embryo.” – Columbo

“Bad assumption. I would love to see the experiment done, but have two reservations.

It has to be done right. I expect that the virus would not infect only blacks, which is boring, unless there is a thorough analysis to determine the genetic difficulties that led to the non-specificity.

In case it does work only on blacks, they need has to be recognized as individuals with all rights, and they must have the government committed to supporting them as a full citizens. No institutionalizing them and in essence discarding them.

Those are hard criteria to meet. We don’t currently have the technology to create viruses that specifically attack individual races, and it would take a lot of courage and commitment from the government.” – Mr. Monster

The experiment is obviously evil, just like one designed to create a viable human-chimp hybrid. It has a pre-built in victim, or victims. Mr. Monster isn’t in any way arguing that sterilizing blacks is wrong, or making them have subhuman intelligence is wrong. Mr. Monster is only discussing the how to depose of them after the experiment is completed. There is nothing about the disposal itself that is impossible to accomplish.

Adding these qualifications doesn’t indicate that Mr. Monster is against the experiment. He’s obviously for it since he’d love to do it.

In Mr. Monster’s case he just needs to get over the technical difficulties of making his bio weapon, and the problem of disposing of all his victims, but otherwise he’d love to try it.

In Myers case it’s merely a matter of overcoming some technical obstacles and finding some devoted parents and off we go.

So I think you are wrong.

Furthermore, the point of my bringing that issue into play was specifically because Myers had claimed speculated that Silvio Berlusconi was going to rape a brain dead woman to get her pregnant. Berlusconi had clearly never suggested any such thing.

Berlusconi’s main concern was euthanasia. Which was clear from his statement, “This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I’m not a Pontius Pilate.”

Myers, ignored that, committed a lie of omission and made it about forcibly impregnating the brain dead.

I’m in fact for euthanasia when it’s the persons desires but it is not clear to me as Myers states that “Here’s a good rule: never consult the priesthood of a death cult before making a life-and-death decision. They always give stupid and evil advice.”

Meanwhile Myers himself had made this prior statement that was worse than anything in the article about Berlusconi.

Heck, perhaps the culture and language of Italy is such that he was only remarking on the health of the woman. Perhaps they value the continence of life so much that the idea of killing her means not only ending her as an individual but also all her potential children.

There is a saying about when Cain killed Able (or vice versa I’m an atheist), “It’s as if he killed all man kind”. That’s because when you kill someone you kill all their potential descendants at the same time.

Myers is straightforward uncharitable in his interpretations of what others have to say. Like assuming my mistake about his deleting a article was a charge of dishonesty. Yet he expects others to interpret a comment where he clearly advocates an experiment designed to produce a victim as something it never was?

Ridiculous. You cannot ethically expect others behavior which you yourself are not willing to give. It is even worse to become angry at others when they are clearly behaving more ethically than you.

I have no ethical qualms with my statement. Myers has clearly advocated a Dr. Moreau type experiment. Myers should have ethical qualms about his statements.

http://blog.calumnist.com/ Danny

Uhm, how is your private beef with PZ relevant to this post? It’s one thing to allege that the top atheist blogger might be a controversy whore, it’s another to hijack the thread to air personal grievances. Go whine at PZ’s blog or write your own.

Brian Macker

Danny,

“Uhm, how is your private beef with PZ relevant to this post?”

It’s not private. It’s quite public. He called me an asshole, and a moron, on a popular forum, and lied in the process. Then he didn’t allow me to reply.

It’s relevant because he’s at the top of the blog list. Part of the way he got to the top was by being controversial in this manner. The fact that Hemant got to the top without such tactics is impressive.

I’m just documenting my side of the issue in a place where others will actually see it.

“Go whine at PZ’s blog or write your own.”

P Z banned me so I can’t respond there.

He’s running an echo chamber. He badmouths people and entire groups in a bigoted and offensive manner, and that is why he is popular with certain people. His comment section is full of obnoxious anonymous commenters.

I’m wondering what makes you think you have the right to tell me what to do. Sounds like you think you have the authority to tell me not to post anywhere on the internet except my own blog or where I’ve been banned.

I could say the same to you. On your own blog you can “whine” about thread hijacking and you can even ban me.

http://barefootbum.com The Barefoot Bum

Of course, the list is biased in that you simply don’t appear to include many atheist blogs. I don’t really care that you personally have omitted my own blog, but its omission indicates you haven’t chosen a neutral pool of candidates such as the Atheist Blogroll or the membership of Planet Atheism.

BMKMD

On an Athiest blog an important issue should be, On what basis do we say that impregnating brain dead women is immoral?

Or creating mule hybrids of chimpanzes and humans?

Or kicking people off a blog for disagreeing with you, and calling that person names?

And by the way, letting brain dead people who can no longer support themselves, and have virtually no hope of recovering isn’t necessarily “killing” them. The injury or illness that caused the brain death, killed them. We’re the ones who keep them artificially alive.

I intended to say how great it was that there are so many Athiest blogs, but this discussion is where a good blog can go…as long as it stays away from adhomenum attacks, or if it does, it deals with the Athiest problem of the basis of morality, including ad homenum attacks. The morality of it, not just the poor logic of such attacks.

http://commonsenseatheism.com Luke

I posted a less-thoroughly-calculated update to the ranking over here. (As of December 2009.)

http://www.buywowpaladin.com/ Ruby

Nowadays, there are lots of bloggers. And you can see how tight is the competition on google for all these blogs that are listed. There are good blogs as well as not so good blogs, but either way it’s nice to read different and unique blogs.

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